It's Halloween, and since I'm feeling unusually enormous, what with being 38 weeks pregnant and all (not to mention the fact that it's flipping cold outside), my dear spouse happens to be outside handing out the treats this year. I saw him through our front door, and even from the back, he looked slightly forlorn, as if he had been left out of the clubhouse.
I waddled my way down the stairs and out to the cold, concrete slab that passes as a front porch to sit with him for a few moments.
"Sometimes I feel like the local deviant," he told me.
I frowned. "Yeah, I know," I said. "I picked up a bit of a vibe that you might be feeling that way. What's up?"
"Well, you know. The being-a-man thing. And having a ponytail."
It's true. He's a man, and he has a ponytail. His hair is much longer than mine; thick, wavy blond hair of which I am perpetually envious. I have many fortunes in life, but great hair is not one of them, which may go some way to explaining why I am consistently attracted to people with gorgeous hair. But I digress.
"You know what, though?" I said to him, hoping I was being reassuring, "You're a kind, sensitive man. That has to count for something, right?"
His turn to frown. "I think that's part of the problem."
I wondered if he was right.
The more I come to terms with the ways in which women have been wounded by societal stereotypes, oppression, and control, the more I see the ways in which the way the world happens hurts men, as well. The more I deal with my own issues and grow in compassion around the ways in which I'm expected to demonstrate my worth and value in the world as a woman, the more I can see the issues that men face, and the more I feel compassion for them.
My spouse is a tall, distinctly masculine-looking man, yet has some traits that are not so traditional. He is our regular household cook. He loves to bake, and has often mentioned opening his own bakery one day. He increasingly takes care of many of our household tasks. Besides his long, blond ponytail, he is soft-spoken, gentle, kind, and much more patient with young children than I am. He shares his toys with our friends' children when they come to visit and has fascinated little ones over and over with his collection of old spinning tops, light-up airplanes, and stacking block towers. I feel so fortunate that he will be co-parenting our child with me. I wish that his gifts in these areas could be more broadly shared, but I find that they often are not, in part based in a fearful bias around adult men interacting with children that aren't theirs. Time and again, this fear seems to permeate our society's collective subconscious.
I don't know what to do to help change this. It doesn't make sense to me that someone who demonstrates nurturing qualities is suspect of ill intentions, simply because of belonging to a particular sex or having a particular gender identity. Yet I know that I have made similar assumptions about others. An aspect of humanity is that we all tend to make snap assumptions about us based upon what groups people belong to (or appear to belong to). Sometimes I think the best and most meaningful way to challenge these assumptions is in being in the world just as we are, even if it's challenging or lonely.
All I can think to say to him is that maybe he can set the tone of any interactions he has at our front door, and that maybe they'll all take their cue from him. And, I think to myself, maybe I can look at my own behavior and not assume ill intent from people based on their sex or gender.
Now he is at the front door, handing out candy and joking with teenagers, who are walking away and wishing him a Merry Christmas instead of Happy Halloween. His face seems a little lighter as he comes up the stairs once again from our front door, and it seems that maybe he is having a good time after all.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Babies, Loss, and Keeping Secrets
A little over a year and a half ago, my younger sister found her infant son in his crib, cool and unbreathing, on an early February morning.
It's the kind of thing that you think will never, ever happen to you, nor to anyone you love. Not my family. Not my children. Not my niece, nephew, grandchild, brother, sister, cousin. It's also the kind of thing that you just don't get over. Life goes on, yes. New things happen. People come and go. Yet the death of a child is one of those things that lingers in your heart. Like all deaths, it is a forever kind of game-changer.
Early this morning, I awoke to thoughts of the afternoon tea party and shower that my mother and sister-in-law are hosting today in celebration of our first child, who's due to come join the rest of us at some time in November. It hasn't escaped me that my child's due date is close enough to my deceased nephew's birthday to matter. It hasn't escaped me that, as we approach the birth of my first child, my sister is approaching what would have been her deceased son's second birthday. So, I find myself thinking of my sister today, too, as well as my oldest nephews, who are now 13 and 12 and remember all too well the events surrounding their little brother's death.
My child is the first child to be born to someone in my family of origin since J. passed away. As I get closer to the end of my pregnancy, I find myself thinking less about the pain of labor, or whether or not I have enough (or too much) stuff packed in my hospital bag, and more about loss. I find myself staring down thoughts and stories of loss, and remember the words that someone very wise once told me: loss is a part of life, and loving fully means accepting that loss can and will occur. Even if the loss is something as common as the child being born, growing up, and leaving home, there will be many little losses and changes to meet along the way. There is the loss of oneself, too, as a person who is not a parent and becomes one. I think that keeping a loving spirit in the face of loss comes from accepting and acknowledging (but not resigning oneself to) the fact of loss. Shortly after J's death, a friend also shared what she had learned about loss, saying that it was not something you really get over or move past, and that no one else can take the place of someone who has passed away, but that you discover that you are big enough to hold the space where that person used to be.
I have seen my sister act in ways over the past year and eight months that show something of her own understanding of both of these ideas that others in my life have expressed. I've been able to witness some of the changes that have come to her over time as she follows her life where it takes her. I see her growing, both because of her devastating loss and in spite of it, holding the loss and expanding around it as she moves further along the path of her life. I have the most profound respect for the challenges of her journey and how she has met them.
At my midwife's appointment the other day, I was asked about my sister's kids. I told the midwife that she had six children. "How old are they?" she asked. I found myself saying, "The oldest is 13, and the youngest is almost 2." That was the first time that ever happened. Usually, when I talk about my sister's kids, I tell them how old child number 5 is, and that the youngest passed away from SIDS. I don't ever say, "my sister has five kids," because that is not true and dishonors the short time that J. came to hang with us here on planet Earth. I suppose that the reason I told the midwife something different was because I just didn't want to get into the big, awkward conversation that tends to happen when someone finds out a child you know has died, even as I wanted to keep the memory of my nephew alive. I also feared being seen either as attention-seeking for sharing this information in the first place, or uncaring in the way I sometimes matter-of-factly convey this information.
The thing is, I'm not a big fan of secrets, although I've been known to harbor a few. Privacy, yes, but secrecy, no. You can decide just once not to tell the whole truth about a situation, for a reason that may feel perfectly right at the time, but then it gets easier and easier not to tell the whole truth. You start to box parts of yourself and your life experience away. Whether it's because of shame, or being concerned how others will view you, or whether or not someone's opinion of you will change, or just because it seems easier for the moment, you keep a secret that needs to be expressed or you hide something of yourself that is starving for light and air. Loss winds up begetting loss. You may have started by losing a person to death, or an important perceived part of your identity, or all of your money, then you start to hide these facts of your life. That is where you wind up losing yourself.
It's the kind of thing that you think will never, ever happen to you, nor to anyone you love. Not my family. Not my children. Not my niece, nephew, grandchild, brother, sister, cousin. It's also the kind of thing that you just don't get over. Life goes on, yes. New things happen. People come and go. Yet the death of a child is one of those things that lingers in your heart. Like all deaths, it is a forever kind of game-changer.
Early this morning, I awoke to thoughts of the afternoon tea party and shower that my mother and sister-in-law are hosting today in celebration of our first child, who's due to come join the rest of us at some time in November. It hasn't escaped me that my child's due date is close enough to my deceased nephew's birthday to matter. It hasn't escaped me that, as we approach the birth of my first child, my sister is approaching what would have been her deceased son's second birthday. So, I find myself thinking of my sister today, too, as well as my oldest nephews, who are now 13 and 12 and remember all too well the events surrounding their little brother's death.
My child is the first child to be born to someone in my family of origin since J. passed away. As I get closer to the end of my pregnancy, I find myself thinking less about the pain of labor, or whether or not I have enough (or too much) stuff packed in my hospital bag, and more about loss. I find myself staring down thoughts and stories of loss, and remember the words that someone very wise once told me: loss is a part of life, and loving fully means accepting that loss can and will occur. Even if the loss is something as common as the child being born, growing up, and leaving home, there will be many little losses and changes to meet along the way. There is the loss of oneself, too, as a person who is not a parent and becomes one. I think that keeping a loving spirit in the face of loss comes from accepting and acknowledging (but not resigning oneself to) the fact of loss. Shortly after J's death, a friend also shared what she had learned about loss, saying that it was not something you really get over or move past, and that no one else can take the place of someone who has passed away, but that you discover that you are big enough to hold the space where that person used to be.
I have seen my sister act in ways over the past year and eight months that show something of her own understanding of both of these ideas that others in my life have expressed. I've been able to witness some of the changes that have come to her over time as she follows her life where it takes her. I see her growing, both because of her devastating loss and in spite of it, holding the loss and expanding around it as she moves further along the path of her life. I have the most profound respect for the challenges of her journey and how she has met them.
At my midwife's appointment the other day, I was asked about my sister's kids. I told the midwife that she had six children. "How old are they?" she asked. I found myself saying, "The oldest is 13, and the youngest is almost 2." That was the first time that ever happened. Usually, when I talk about my sister's kids, I tell them how old child number 5 is, and that the youngest passed away from SIDS. I don't ever say, "my sister has five kids," because that is not true and dishonors the short time that J. came to hang with us here on planet Earth. I suppose that the reason I told the midwife something different was because I just didn't want to get into the big, awkward conversation that tends to happen when someone finds out a child you know has died, even as I wanted to keep the memory of my nephew alive. I also feared being seen either as attention-seeking for sharing this information in the first place, or uncaring in the way I sometimes matter-of-factly convey this information.
The thing is, I'm not a big fan of secrets, although I've been known to harbor a few. Privacy, yes, but secrecy, no. You can decide just once not to tell the whole truth about a situation, for a reason that may feel perfectly right at the time, but then it gets easier and easier not to tell the whole truth. You start to box parts of yourself and your life experience away. Whether it's because of shame, or being concerned how others will view you, or whether or not someone's opinion of you will change, or just because it seems easier for the moment, you keep a secret that needs to be expressed or you hide something of yourself that is starving for light and air. Loss winds up begetting loss. You may have started by losing a person to death, or an important perceived part of your identity, or all of your money, then you start to hide these facts of your life. That is where you wind up losing yourself.
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